I guess I come from a different angle about this.
I took a year's worth of local community college "Women's Strength" classes to lose bodyfat and gain strength. Pretty much a choice between aerobics or this.....aerobics did not appeal to me and glad I took the latter. Found I liked lifting and ran with the class's premise.
The Parker community college is the largest extension/annex of it's larger parent one down in Yuma (Arizona Western College). In very rural areas, this system has helped bring community college classes to towns where hundreds of miles keep people from attending otherwise. ITN and other electronic classroom methods along with onsite are fostered and built.
Anyway....The classes were three day "split" with machines/freeweights available held in the High School's Girl's gym in the early evening. It was fine....I liked the Boy's gym better.....more and heavier stuff....but that class was too early in the morning at the time. I was taking my son to afternoon/evening classes after he received a two year Presidential scholarship upon graduating from high school in 2001. In his second semester, he and I took the same early morning weights class.
My first instructor was a wrestling coach and former bodybuilder himself. He had taught the women's class for years and set out a pretty basic routine for all the women to use. No different from the guys. Showed us the "ropes" with the freeweights and machines. Started us all out with low weights to get the form down and get the women used to lifting in general. If any of us had questions, he was there but generally he just sat back and graded some papers from other classes he taught.
Now, the women who took the classes were either older than I was (50 at the time) or abit younger. There for a variety of reasons. To some, it was intimidating having a male instructor, I guess. I didnt care and did ask questions if need be. I will say he was not helpful when I was attempting squats at first and was having problems getting to parallel. The gym had a leg press but I wanted to learn how to squat. There was a power rack and Olympic bar/plates. His opinion was "some can do it and some would not". Big help that. I had to go online and learn about "box squats" on my own to break the "raising heels" problem I had. At least I can squat comfortably at parallel or abit below. Deep ones are something else.
When the second semester started, the class had a new female instructor and a new batch of women. I was the only one from the previous semester. By that time, I had done more research on the web....had progressed further along than any of the newbies there and just joined to use the gym. Cheaper than getting a subscription at the local commercial one. I noticed she was far more involved with everyone and this was a help to the new people (another mixture of young and older women)
As to size? She was 5'2" and weighed 260 lbs. She had problems with her weight all her life but that did not stop her from learning as much as possible and becoming knowledgible as a trainer. Later that semester, she had gastric by pass and lost quite abit of fat through this drastic method. There were a couple of women there who also had the surgery and were taking the class as therapy after going this route along with their diets. Lifting is highly regarded and suggested by their doctors to help with strength and as the best way to keep the metabolism up to lose more bodyfat.
By the third semester, I was sometimes approached by others to help "spot" or with exercise questions for the knowledge I learned when the instructor was busy with another. Of course, this is a college class that will have a high turnover rate as each class comes in. Not everyone comes in and stays for the full semester (dropouts for a variety of reasons is common.) Most of the time, by mid semester, sometimes there would be days when it was just the instructor, me and one other person.
I had made a promise to myself to take four semesters of this class and have done so. Now after six months being away and working out at home. I still miss the comradry of the class. The female instructor had been pushing for a seperate facility for the women and got it. Got some good equipment in from the parent Arizona Western College and if the dang gas prices werent so high....would go back next semester. ( the Parker extension is 66 miles away.)
Sheesh, I would still be the furthest along of anyone in the class other than the instructor. No one has lifted as much as I do since the end of the first semester.
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